


Only Human

by ShrimpZilla



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 17:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5057875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShrimpZilla/pseuds/ShrimpZilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inquisitor Trevelyan's brother is brought to Skyhold when injured.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Human

**Author's Note:**

> Follows The Brothers Trevelyan.

Cullen looked up from where he was correcting the technique of the new batch of recruits. The horn signaling returning troops was being blown, but he knew for a fact that the Inquisitor had only just reached the Fallow Mire and wouldn't be back for at least two weeks. Panic gripped him. Had something happened? True he had received the letter from her yesterday stating that everything was going well, but that meant little. Everything could change within an instant.

"Who is it?" He called up to the guard running the winch that opened Skyhold's gates.

"The dispatch from Ostwick, looks like, Commander," the man relayed. Cullen furrowed his brow, the dizzying rush of concern and fear for the Inquisitor falling away into steely professionalism. Lancel Trevelyan was supposed to have his troops at the Storm Coast while Percy should have been in Starkhaven attempting to negotiate with the prince who had been pestering them about revenge.

"What are they doing here?" He barked even though it wasn't likely the guard had any more information on the matter. He gestured dismissively as the man stuttered, attempting to come up with a response better than I don't know.

"Oh good, they've arrived." He heard Josephine's voice from behind him and when he turned to look she was standing on the stairs. She had a sheaf of parchment clutched in her hands. Cullen marched over, glancing back at the approaching troops with suspicion he couldn't quite rationalize. "We received word from Lord Bayart that Lord Trevelyan was injured."

"Red Templars?" Cullen asked reflexively. He recognized Lord Bayart as Lancel's second and was able to clear up some of his questions from that alone. His eyes were back on the gates. He could make out the green and gold of the Trevelyan family colors now.

"He didn't say. Only that they would be bringing Lord Trevelyan here for aid." Cullen must have made some sort of face because she quickly added, "The letter just arrived. I did not think they would be this close behind it."

"The weather's been bad," he grumbled, still feeling left out of the loop. "Are the healers prepared to take him?" He asked. Josephine nodded. He figured she would have had everything taken care of the moment she finished reading, but it was better to weigh on the side of caution.

"We will need to send the Inquisitor word," she breeched softly.

"I'll do it," he offered brusquely though he dreaded the idea of putting such ill news to paper. It should come from someone who cared for her, however, and someone she cared for as well. He wasn't sure if Josephine knew of his fledgling romance with the Inquisitor, he suspected she might since he was certain Leliana did, but whatever she thought his reasons were for offering she kept them to herself. He was grateful. Besides, Josephine was better suited to dealing with all the lesser lords and nobility that populated the upper ranks of Lord Trevelyan's troops.

He nodded at Josephine as she passed Bayart's letter to him and began walking briskly towards the gate, pausing to issue a few orders towards soldiers that were standing idle from the interruption of their training. All of Skyhold seemed to pause to watch as the Ostwick contingent poured in. Cullen scanned the formations as quickly as could, wondering how badly Lancel had been injured. Surely it could have been a minor thing, a broken arm or leg, a small concussion. But he saw the empty saddled destrier, the worried faces of the men, and knew that was solely wishful thinking. 

"He needs a healer," the willowy figure of Lord Bayart shouted from atop his horse. Cullen saw the man was wide eyed and sweating. He made a strange sight with his high cheek bones and soft features beneath the layers of dirt from their quick ride off the coast. Cullen couldn't remember exactly how Lancel and his second were related. Cousins, third or fourth and somehow removed? It didn't matter at any rate.

"What's happened?" Cullen said while instructing soldiers towards the covered wagon that Bayart was pointing towards in a panic.

"He's been stabbed straight through his stomach by a spider! We wrapped his wound as best we could to stop the bleeding but there's poison in him and the anti-venom we have was no use!" Bayart exclaimed, clambering shakily from his horse. Cullen wondered about the man, so shaken up by something that almost seemed simple to him. Had he never seen death in battle? Never witnessed someone he knew pass? They were cold thoughts and Cullen felt guilty for judging the man so, but he could not stop them from coming all the same. Bayart reached out a hand and steadied himself on Cullen's shoulder. "I have never seen the likes of it, serah. It was three times the size of Champion at least." The man's gaze alighted on the sullen looking destrier as he spoke.

"We will do all we can," Cullen said as he pulled away as politely as he could. Bayart nodded distantly as if he had actually been offered some form of comfort. "If you'll excuse me, I must send word to Inquisitor Trevelyan."

"Yes," Bayart mumbled, "Evelyn should know."

"Perhaps someone should send word to Bann Trevelyan? And certainly Lord Trevelyan's wife should receive some report of his whereabouts." Some color returned to the other man's face at the prospect of having a meaningful task to distract him.

"I shall get to work on it straight away."

Cullen released a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding in. The fear he had felt when he thought it had been the Inquisitor had faded into a heavy knot of tension in his guts. The repetition of the name Trevelyan, Trevelyan, Trevelyan had set him on edge. He could not map the difference between pettiness and concern that wound its way through his chest. So many Trevelyans it made his head spin. Only one truly captivated his attention though. He must write to Evelyn and hope she would not hate him for being the barer of this news.

 

***

 

Despite his best efforts it was Cassandra that Cullen saw first upon the Inquisitor's hasty return to Skyhold. She was standing outside the healer's quarters looking much more like a simple guard than anything else. She sighed when she saw him and shook her head slowly. There was a divide amongst the Inquisition's inner circle as to the Inquisitor's decision to drop what she was doing to stand by her brother's sickbed. Cullen didn't know what Cassandra's opinions on the matter were. Only his own and those who had not gone along to the Fallow Mire with her.

"What could I say to her?" She began, anticipating his question. "Her brother may be dying. I would not rob her of her chance to be with him no matter what I thought."

"The healers say his recovery is going well," Cullen pressed lightly.

"Better now that they can use her blood to bolster him," she returned. He had to give her that. No matter what they had been doing before, no matter the vital fact that they had a mage to help the process, it had been the loss of blood that offered the most difficulty. They could not simply pull it from the air and it was hard to say who among them would be best suited to giving to the cause. Cullen had offered and been told that it was too dangerous. If they mixed wrong he would die from it faster and more painfully than anything else. With the Inquisitor they were offered a smaller threat, a greater sense of success.

"How is she?" He asked instead of focusing on his own doubts about everything. It did not look good for her to run off back to Skyhold for such a personal matter. Soldiers died everyday without the Herald by their side. He tried and found he could not rightly place himself in her shoes. If it had been Branson or Mia or Rosalie he did not know if he would abandon his duties.

"I've seen worse." Cullen turned to see Varric mounting the stairs. He had a bottle of something under one arm and a plate of cookies. "She isn't stabbing anyone or drinking herself stupid. Besides, like you said, it looks like he's going to pull through after all." Cullen opened his mouth but the dwarf shot him a look that made him think twice about what he was planning to say. "Go easy on her, Curly. She may be the Herald and the Inquisitor and the only hope Thedas has, but she's still just a woman. You have to remember that, when you build someone up they way we've being doing with her, that they're still just people."

"For once, I agree with Varric," Cassandra added. Cullen nodded, knowing he was being too logical and cold. His thoughts hovered over battles and strategy. But that was because it was safer there, wasn't it? To acknowledge that the Inquisitor was also simply Evelyn would be to let in the notion that she, like anyone, could perish. He tried to push that thought far away, tried to focus only on Varric and Cassandra and the dry warmth of the hall they stood in.

The healer poked her head out of the door and frowned when she saw the three of them. Cullen thought she would shoo them away but in the end she just grumbled and shoved the door open for them. Inside had a distinct smell that Cullen tried his best not to place. Blood and sweat, elfroot and tonic, and something sour that curdled the air in his nostrils and left his face drawn. On a cot by the window Lancel Trevelyan lay still and pale. He seemed small, somehow, with the sheet pulled up to his armpits, one arm laying free and freshly bandaged. Propped in a chair by his side was the Inquisitor. Her eyes were half-lidded, shadows catching and holding in the places beneath them so that for the first moment he saw her she looked almost as ill as her brother. Cullen's heart clenched. But then she was looking up, having noticed them, and smiling through her obvious fatigue. His heart clenched again but for an altogether different reason.

"Here," Varric said, pushing passed so that he could offer her the plate of cookies. She smiled gratefully and took one with a slightly shaking hand. She placed the edge to her lips and nibbled small and delicate. "If you don't finish the whole thing I'll send you to bed without dessert," the rogue mocked, holding up the amber filled bottle with a wry grin.

"Varric!" Cassandra called in shock. "She has just given blood. She cannot drink whatever it is you are proposing to give her!" She looked towards the healer who was busying herself scrubbing down sheets in a basin. Even in the low light Cullen could see the pink of the water, the blood stains still dark and prominent on the sheets.

"Drinkin' for two now, Inquisitor," the elf remarked offhandedly. There was a tense moment before she seemed to catch what she had said. "Because you're givin' him your blood. Not, you know, cause of the other thing." She shrugged at the slight sound of disgust Cassandra managed. "Phrasin', phrasin'."

Cullen wanted to rush to the Inquisitor and wrap her slight frame in his arms. He wanted to hold her, carry her to her rooms, make sure that she was well rested. His feet felt like wood and his tongue didn't seem to be made of anything smarter either. He stood still and silent and simply looked at her. She caught his gaze and smiled around the edges of her barely nibbled cookie. "I'm glad you came," she said. Varric and Cassandra assured her there was nowhere else to be, but Cullen knew the words were truly meant for him alone. It thawed some of the coldness he had been holding inside and eased the awkwardness of his frame.

"How is he doing? How do you feel?" He questioned. Varric sat himself down by the Inquisitor's feet and popped open the bottle. Cassandra leaned herself against the wall, looking briefly at the wasted form of Lancel. Trevelyan glanced at her brother, the small cheer she had summoned falling away. She looked older, lined and tired and weak. Her shoulders sank and she let her hands fall into her lap. Cullen noticed that her sleeve was still rolled up from where she had given blood.

"He's sleepin' and she's practically drained. How d'ya think they are?" The healer chirped from behind them. Cullen spared her a glance far harsher than she deserved.

"Would you mind... if we could have some privacy? You said there's little else to do but for him to rest. You should do the same. I promise I won't jump around," Trevelyan said lightly. The other mage seemed to consider saying no before shrugging her shoulders.

"I'll be in the next room over if you need anything," she said and proceeded to drag her washing through an adjacent door.

"Now, to answer you question, Commander," she continued once the healer had shut her door, "it's exactly as she says."

"You should be sleeping," he insisted.

"I want to stay up with him a little longer. She said he wouldn't likely wake up tonight but..." Her voice trailed. Cullen shifted from foot to foot, wanting to entreat her but now knowing how to go about it without sounding callous. "It's so strange," she began again with a voice that trembled around the edges. Varric offered her the bottle and though she hesitated she took it. Cullen glanced at Cassandra and saw the quiet disapproval on her face. It made him feel better, less like some inhuman thing that couldn't comprehend grief and comfort. "To see him like this, I mean. He's ten years older than me. I've never even seen him so..." She hesitated and took another long pull of the drink rather than continue.

"Hey, you know what I just realized?" Varric said in purposefully casual tones. "We're all younger siblings." He took the bottle from the Inquisitor, took a sip, and offered it to Cassandra with a sigh of satisfaction. Despite her frown the Seeker took it. "So, what's the most obnoxious thing you guys did? C'mon, I'll even go first." He cleared his throat. "Once, Bartrand passed out a party and I rubbed honey in his beard. When he woke up it was full of bugs and mice had eaten bits of it." He erupted in laughter as he spoke. Beside him the Inquisitor giggled, snorting towards the end in an unladylike manner that brought a smile to Cullen's face. He felt the bottle being pressed into his hands by Cassandra who was fighting the grin from her own face.

"Lancel was betrothed to his wife since they were thirteen," Trevelyan started quickly, as if she might lose her nerve. "Even though it was all arranged he really and truly fell in love with her. He used to write poems about her, but of course he never showed anyone." Cullen smirked at the idea of the tough, gruff oldest Trevelyan sibling sitting in his palatial room writing silly love poems. That was the same man who had threatened him about staying away from Evelyn? "He made me so angry once -- I can't even remember why -- so I stole his journal and asked Helaine -- that's his wife's name -- to read to me." She broke off a piece of the cookie she had been holding and tossed it in her mouth. "I must have been about six so I knew how to read and I knew what the poems said even if I didn't understand all the words. He was so embarrassed!" She put a hand in front of her mouth while she laughed.

"That's messed up, Inquisitor!" Varric chided with good humor. "You never show a writer's work without his permission."

"I'm sure she must have found it terribly romantic," Cassandra prompted. Trevelyan nodded and lowered her hand.

"Oh yes. When he finally opened his bedroom door I think she kissed him. The fact of the matter remains that the poems weren't very good by any standard. He had every right to be embarrassed." Cullen looked down into the mouth of the bottle. He was relieved to see warmth and life back in Evelyn's cheeks. On an impulse he couldn't quite explain he tilted his head back and drank. Through the coughing fit he fell into afterwards he could hear Varric cheering.

"My brother and I--" He started when he got himself under control. He handed the bottle off to Varric. "My brother and I played a trick on my elder sister once. There was a hideous statue in the center of our village and the story went any couple brave enough to kiss under it would be together for life." He shrugged at the curious look the Inquisitor gave him, clearly intrigued by this notion. "Mia and some boy she was seeing planned to do just that. Branson and I had overheard her speaking about it so we took a bucket of old rain water and somehow managed to get it atop the thing." He was smiling now, recalling the joy of such a simple accomplishment. "We waited for what felt like hours before she finally showed up."

"You didn't," the Inquisitor gasped. He nodded dutifully.

"You ruined your sister's true love kiss?" Cassandra said, feigning complete and utter disbelief.

"If it makes you feel better she got back at me a few years later when she pulled my pants down during a festival. Nearly the whole town saw me. I refused to leave the house for weeks." Everyone laughed at that and Cullen admitted that it felt good to be the cause.

"I don't have anything that can beat that," Cassandra said. Varric stood up and raised the bottle out as if in toast.

"Well, then, the award for most annoying younger sibling goes to the Commander!"

 

***

One night passed and then another and Cullen realized that the Inquisitor had lied. She had no intention of getting back to her room and resting. She would spend every moment she could spare, and those that she couldn't, by her brother's bedside.

Despite the constant reassurance from the healer that yes, Lancel was indeed on the mend there was little visible proof and little reason she could see to leave him. Cullen could see the concern in her eyes. She feared that if she left he would pass alone, without her. Such a thing he knew she would never be able to forget, so he said little when Josephine and Leliana prodded her to refocus her attentions on more pressing matters. He agree, of course, that she should be out closing rifts or managing other things. He supposed it was two faced of him to nod along with the two women when they tsked and yet say nothing when the managed to wring a moment of time from the Inquisitor.

He saw her less than he would have liked, though that seemed to be the defining trait of their relationship anyway. With her so preoccupied a heavier burden fell to the Inquisition advisors. He didn't mind shouldering more so that she might have some time to herself, to be human as Varric had put it. It was the only thing he really had to offer her.

"Evelyn?" He whispered into the silence of the healer's quarters. It was midday and the sun shone bright and cheerful through the window, but the mood within was stunted. Evelyn looked up from where she sat by her brother's bedside. She beckoned him closer with one hand, the other intertwined with Lancel's. Certainly that was a step in the right direction, he thought as he saw that Lancel's fingers had a grip on hers. He was responding.

"He woke up for a moment earlier," she explained. There was no one around and so Cullen felt confident dropping an around across her shoulders. He let his eyes drift closed for a moment when she leaned into him from her seat. "He opened his eyes, grabbed my hand, and, well, he called me Helaine, but he did speak." There was a trace of disappointment in her voice, but it was mostly hidden under the eagerness and hope. "The healer made a drink up that's supposed to deal with the last of the poison and keep him from feeling too much pain. He drank it and then fell back asleep."

"That's a good sign," Cullen agreed. He dropped a kiss to the top of her head. She tilted her head up and returned the favor to his chin. She settled against him and Cullen savored that familiarity in her action. 

"I've never held his hand before," she said.

"You must've. He's your brother."

"No." He could feel her shaking her head against his side while they both looked at the still sleeping form of Lancel. "He's not very affectionate. He used to just tweak my nose instead of anything noticeably demonstrative." Cullen wondered how much of that reflected in her ability to deal with his own issues displaying how much he cared. He often tormented himself with the idea that she was comfortable keeping their relationship private because that was how things were in the Circle. Had it all actually stemmed from here? An older brother too self conscious to hold his little sister's hand? "He was a good brother though," she insisted as if understanding his terseness on the matter. "He visited him all the time when I was in the Circle." She turned her head to look up at him again. "I saw him more than mother and father." Cullen saw the wet shine to her eyes, the way her lower lip trembled slightly as she tried to keep a brave face. He sat himself down on the floor beside her and tugged her gently into his lap. She released her brother's hand and wrapped her arms around Cullen's neck.

"Everything is going to be all right, Evelyn," he whispered into her neck. He kissed her shoulder, her throat, her jaw, her temple. She smiled and buried her face into the fur of his collar, resting there.

"Will you stay with him?" She asked after a while. "So that I can take a bath and put on clean clothes?"

"Yes," he responded. She twisted in his arms, looking back at her brother's slack face.

"He might wake up again and I don't want him to, I mean, I'd like someone to be here that..." Her words were getting caught up in her throat. He wondered how much she had been able to sleep, how often she was taking meals. It wouldn't do if she made herself sick though there had been little that could be said to convince her otherwise.

"Evelyn," Cullen said calmly, "I will do it." She looked back at him and smiled, her eyes filled with warmth and emotion. It nearly hurt him how much good that look made him feel. She kissed him again, slow and attentive before pulling herself from his arms.

"Thank you, Cullen," she whispered into his mouth and then she slipped out the door.

Cullen sighed and hefted himself into the seat she had occupied. He found he was smiling, unable to wipe the silly grin off his face as he stared after her. He was already half in love with her. He wasn't sure what he would do, where this would go, and though he worried over it constantly it was all worth it just to be by her and have her look at him the way she did.

Lancel started coughing violently and it tore Cullen's mind back to the present. The other man curled onto his side groaning and hacking. Cullen stood, uncertain, and from behind him the healer appeared. She placed a soothing hand against Lancel's back and helped him to ease the blackness up out of his lungs and into a bucket on the floor. Cullen found himself hoping that after the coughing fit Lancel would go straight back to sleep. He didn't know what he would say to the man, didn't know what Lancel would think of finding him by his bedside and not his sister.

"It tastes like sweaty fish," he grumbled wetly. The healer made a noncommittal noise in response. She tended him with magic and potion while Cullen watched. When she had checked everything it seemed she could she offered him a piece of elfroot to chew to ease the taste out of his mouth. Lancel took it, looking as sour and stern as he ever had on the few occasions Cullen had seen him. "Get me Bayart, would you?" Cullen rose. "No, not you. Her." He pointed shakily at the mage. "You promised Evelyn you'd sit with me. I heard it." Cullen wanted to protest. He wanted to get out of the room as quickly as possible at the suggestion that Lancel had been awake while... that he had seen them... Blood rushed to his cheeks quickly enough that Cullen felt dizzy.

"Nobles," the elf griped, "always so bossy." She left, however, clearly more bark than bite and the two men alone.

“How has Bayart been?” Lancel asked, floundering a bit in the cot as he attempted to be comfortable. Cullen could see his jaw tense painfully at certain movements. He knew he should advise him to lay still lest he ruin his bandages and reopen his wound, but the words would not come. He swallowed.

“Well, he’s—“

“Annoying, I assume,” Lancel cut him off. Cullen watched him press a hand against his abdomen and glance sidelong at him. 

“Yes, very,” Cullen responded honestly, grateful that he didn’t need to concoct a story. The man was always asking pointless questions and it had taken everything in Cullen’s power to keep him from pestering Evelyn too much. 

“Sounds right. Father made me give him rank, though he’s proven surprisingly gifted with a bow.” He snorted and it was so much the same and so different from Evelyn’s that Cullen felt uncomfortable by the sound. It was easy for him, sometimes, to forget that there was little future between the two of them. Faced with her brother it became a much more tangible fact. “He pissed his little velvet pants when we told him Evelyn had turned up as a mage. He was thirteen.” Lancel rubbed a hand over his face in a tired gesture. Cullen wondered if he would fall back asleep. “One of those potions that woman gave me makes me feel drunk…” He grumbled into his hand. He let his head fall back against his pillow, sighing through a pained hitch in his breath. Cullen stood, filled a glass with water, and set it on the small table by the head of the cot. 

“Are you feeling better?” He ventured when he realized that Lancel was not sleeping but just laying back. He still longed for approval from the Trevelyan brothers. Lancel might be his best bet on that front. Hard and socially awkward, a secret romantic, a fighter. They seemed to have more in common than not. Cullen shifted in his seat, clearing his throat as he tried to play out different scenarios for how this might go.

“We cleared the coast of Red Templars,” Lancel answered instead. His voice was low and when he moved his hand away Cullen could see that his eyes were distant. “I hadn’t thought they’d… look that way.” 

“Yes, they’re… horrific to witness. What’s been done to those men is unforgivable.”

“They don’t look like men anymore, but I kept trying to find their faces,” Lancel admitted haltingly. “I knew boys growing up who became Templars. My own brother… Percy should’ve been a Templar. If Evelyn hadn’t… If Percy wasn’t…” He closed his eyes and Cullen watched his way his throat bobbed with unsaid words. He thought of all the men and women he knew who had likely become monsters under Samson. All of them manipulated by their dedication to the Order and the lyrium song strong in their veins. 

“You shouldn’t think on things like that,” he said, almost as much to himself as to Lancel Trevelyan. 

“In another world you would’ve been one of them instead of here sitting by my sickbed because my sister asked you.” Cullen tensed at the thought he had been trying to keep out of his mind. Thinking about what might have been was the path to madness. Lancel opened his eyes and turned his head to look at Cullen. “How do you live with that?” Cullen lowered his eyes to think on that for a moment. 

“I—“ He started and stopped, shaking his head a little at the half formed sentences that littered his brain. “Honestly,” he began, “your sister helps a great deal.” He glanced up and saw the look of confusion that flitted across Lancel’s tired face. “She makes it easier to focus on the present, remember that I’m not who I was or who I might have been. And seeing her strength gives me strength of my own.” He left off there. There so much he could say about Evelyn that he found it easier to say less lest he never stop. Lancel stared at him as if he expected more. 

“Evelyn is impressive,” he said at length. “Commander—“ Cullen felt he could see the words in the air before the man had finished addressing him. He could hear it in the tone, the same one he had had when he told him he didn’t approve of how much Evelyn liked him. 

“I love her.” The words spilled out in response to the sound of Lancel winding up to chastise him for his relationship. He felt winded by having said them. Lancel pushed himself up onto an elbow. Before he could say anything the door opened and Lord Bayart stepped in, his lithe body taut with nervous energy. Cullen tried to mask his sigh of relief even as a look of annoyance passed over Lancel’s face.

“Cousin!” Lord Bayart exclaimed, rushing to the cot and grabbing Lancel’s hand in his. The elder man frowned and shook him off. 

“Don’t grab my hand as if you’re courting me. I’m married,” he groused. 

“My apologies, dear cousin, but I have been so worried.” Bayart looked over his shoulder a Cullen. “Would you mind, serah, giving me a moment with my dear sweet cousin?”

“Of course,” Cullen said, standing to leave. Lancel shook off another of Bayart’s touches and tried to sit up further. 

“Commander, we were in the middle of a discussion—“

“I have word from you mother,” Bayart spoke over him, brandishing a letter that looked to be written on high quality vellum.

“You told my mother?!” Lancel boomed. Cullen used the moment of confusion and frustration to slip out. He put a hand to his forehead as he made his way down the stairs and away from the healer’s quarters. He didn’t know what had come over him. Telling Lancel that he loved Evelyn? Before he had even told Evelyn? Before they had even been together long enough for such a declaration to be appropriate? He didn’t doubt that Lancel would tell her, eager to point out the silly notions of the Ferelden farm boy. 

 

***

It was a few more days before Lancel was ready to travel. The announcement was met with some reluctance but Lancel was stubborn. When the day arrived and the Ostwick troops were ready to depart Cullen found himself standing before the man he had been avoiding. He watched, mind frantic, as Lancel and Bayart offered their thanks to the Inquisition. They went down the line, shaking hands and bowing where appropriate. Lancel bows no quite as low or dramatic as Bayart’s, but he man was still healing from a severe wound so Cullen supposed it was acceptable. 

“Commander,” Lancel said, extended his hand and shaking Cullen’s. It felt no more forceful than any of the others had looked.

“Lord Trevelyan,” he responded. The other man looked at him with eyes and hair a shade darker than the Inquisitor’s. He had trimmed his beard and though his face was thinner it was an altogether healthier appearance than when he had arrived. 

“I hope in the future we can more private conversations away from my sister’s eager little ears.”

“Of, of course,” Cullen managed through his shock. They released each other’s hand and Lancel moved to go to the next person. Lord Bayart took up the act of shaking Cullen’s hand though the Commander’s attention was still on Lancel. The bigger man reached back almost thoughtlessly and patted Cullen’s shoulder. Though he wore no smile and his face was as severe as ever Cullen thought there was almost camaraderie in the gesture. It rocked him. 

When Lancel reached Evelyn she curtsied lightly, the gesture a little comical from her casual pants and tunic. Lancel shook his head and opened one of his arms, beckoning her with his fingers in a subtle movement. She tilted her head and stifled a grin.

“What for?” 

“Oh come now, Evelyn,” he grumbled without the bite in his voice that the tone usually possessed. “I almost died, or so they tell me. I’ll be damned if I don’ give my sister a hug after the ordeal. Herald of Andraste and all that,” he added at the end with a roll of his eyes. Evelyn smiled, no, Cullen corrected himself as he watched, she beamed. She wrapped her arms gently around his middle as he rested the one arm across her shoulders. 

“Mother is going to cry so much when she sees you riding back.”

“Yes, and father is going to lecture me.” They broke away from each other. Lancel’s hand rested on her shoulder. “Lancel,” he continued in a mock voice that must have been meant to be Bann Trevelyan, “what do you think you’re doing going off and dying? Without you, Percy is the heir.”

“And the Trevelyan family name is ruined,” the Inquisitor finished for him, dissolving into giggles while her brother offered a rare smile. Despite herself Evelyn hugged him again. “Goodbye, Lancel. Be safe.”

 

***

Cullen looked up when he heard the soldier he had been speaking to leave, but didn’t hear the door shut. He was surprised to see Evelyn standing there, holding it open with a hesitant smile on her face. He felt his posture loosen just for seeing her. “Come in,” he insisted. 

“I owe you an apology,” she started, biting at her lower lip nervously. Cullen shook his head and crossed to her. “I haven’t been the best Inquisitor these last few days.”

“It’s understandable.” He reached out to cup her cheek in his hand, rubbing his thumb along the line of bone. “You’re only human, Evelyn,” he said as if he hadn’t needed Varric to remind him of that very fact. She smiled radiantly and Cullen was happy for his mild deception on that front. 

“I think sometimes I forget that,” she admitted. Cullen hugged her to his chest and rested his chin on the top of her head. He inhaled the scent of her fresh soap and delicate flower perfume, so light and airy that it was barely anything other than a memory. “You know,” she drawled with a hint of amusement, “I think Lancel likes you.”

“Oh?” Cullen tried to sound nonchalant but he was nervous as to what she could possibly mean.

“Yes, he told me that he thought you were at least more competent than Bayart.” She pulled back a little so that she could look up at him. “I know that doesn’t sound like much but that’s high praise from Lancel. He’s not very good at saying nice thing.” She tilted her head as if only just realizing the fact. Cullen found himself smiling slightly. It was the understatement of the month to say that. “You know, he wishes people happy nameday by just telling them to have a good day.” 

“I’m shocked,” he said sarcastically, leaning down to kiss at her jaw. She giggled under his touch, his stubble tickling her and his lips teasing her.

“Is your family as strange as mine?”

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” he said playfully though his mind was hardly half on the words. He was thinking about the sound of her laughter, the way she felt squirming in his arms.

“I’d like that,” she responded a little breathlessly. Cullen paused in his tickling kisses to soak in the exchange they had had far more smoothly than if he had been focusing on his properly. As he looked at her a silly grin broke out across his face. She wanted to meet his family. 

This time he kissed her like she deserved to be kissed.


End file.
